


every time we change, you're gone

by vampiricvibe



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Songfic, Sort Of, alternative take on big mo, because i cant just kill a character off like that, dream - Freeform, frank brings a real gun, it ends up being a dream, just because leopard by jack stauber played constantly as i wrote this, tragic consequences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:07:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiricvibe/pseuds/vampiricvibe
Summary: Frank brings a real gun to the Laser Tag Arena. Arguments and hijinks ensue. Dennis dies.Wait, what?
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	every time we change, you're gone

**Author's Note:**

> ......so this started out as a joke idea but kinda morphed into its own beast. the dream twist isn't a 'twist' per-se so much as i cant leave their relationship on a bury your gays trope, okay. but still get emotionally invested, it's worth it. maybe. judge my writing on your own merit idk. bonus points for leopard by jack stauber for getting me through writing a majority of this hence why it takes up the title.

They've all gathered together, shrouded in the neon glow, and Mac _swears_ it was barely a day since they came here last - faint flickers of competitive ire side by side with the mindless pewing of plastic laser guns. Yeah. Spite spitting gums and pumping veins. _Yeah_ \- they had just come here, maybe, it was a few days ago, hell, when you drink like he does (like they _all_ do) all of the days tend to blur into one, but they definitely came here not too long ago. He supposed he was lingering on the memories because... he wanted to figure out why they all decided to come back within the same week... Laser tag is good, but when all is said and done; laser tag is just that - laser tag. Nothing super special about it to warrant a return twice in seven days, maybe less.

Unless he's forgetting something, which he does, _often._

So, he keeps his mouth shut, and observes the others; and, as he thought, Dennis takes his podium to promptly begin his hourly boss-about, demanding and ordering, kickstarting their 'cooperation'. Mac has, come to expect nothing less.

"Okay, everybody's got their gear on - we'll go in teams of two, I'll start off with Charlie, Dee, you go with Mac."

Mac rolls his eyes. It's safe to assume Dee does the exact same - albeit he's not looking (why would he?) Yeah, this is all _too_ familiar. They've teamed up before, and they go together about as well as Charlie and a clean bath. Dennis sees the surface tension and raises his palms as if he were mimicking the Lord, the false kind, without the wounds of wooden nails to legitimize his status among the Heavens, "Hey, hey, c'mon - it's a thirty minute session, for God's sake. You can survive thirty minutes." He attempts to soothe - but his condescension only ends up making him sound more exasperated than usual.

Mac and Dee meet eyes at the same time; their survival rate in thirty minutes was... Up for uncertain debate. Frank butts his way in, barging through the pettiness of the rat and the bird, and states his own stresses with a firm, stout anger, "What about me?" Dennis glares down at his father whom he often forgets is just that. 

"...You can sit this one out. Or you can just go join another team."

Frank, takes it personally, which - _if Mac was allowed to weigh in_ \- it totally was, for whatever reason, or lack thereof, knowing Dennis. "You're excluding me! Wh- how dare you, you little bastard. Charlie's comin' with me, ya hear? He's on my team, and I'm playing!"

"Your gun..." Thumb and forefinger meet the bridge of Dennis' nose, it's on the wrong way round, and isn't even lit up, like it's supposed to be, in the first place. "Frank, _it's not even on._ " A familiar scenario, Mac thinks. Pitiful, too. He won't last a round.

"What? this, cheap ol' plastic thingy? Well, duh. I'm not using that, dummy." Dennis blinks, and in that mere millisecond, Frank pulls out a glock, real and loaded, nonchalantly, and everybody stumbles backward in a simultaneous wave of wide eyes and sweat-laiden skin, tripping and confused and thrown completely off balance. 

_Ah._

Charlie is the first to scream, "What the fuck man! What the fuck!" Dee remains silent, so does Dennis, simply staring in fear at the thing, being careful not to set it off, and Mac is halfway in-between - whimpering and stuttering profanities, and reaching for it himself - "What? I brought my own gear. This way there's no way I'm gonna lose."

Dennis scoffs lightly, out of the sheer fucking absurdity of the situation - he shakes his head, his eyebrows furrow and he has almost shriveled at the sight of the barrel, almost, "---What are you gonna do? Are you gonna shoot the kids, huh? You gonna shoot the kids, Frank?"

"No! No... Don't be stupid." He flails it, and Mac preemptively ducks. "More of an intimidation tactic than anything, stop them from shooting at me."

"If that's the case..." Charlie begins, cutting off Dennis from his points, promptly putting out his flame, posing his own question - a very valid one, strangely enough, "...Then how are you going to, y'know, get points? You need points to win the game, man."

"Ah, shit Charlie... you're right." Dennis' palm meets his forehead. "This isn't even loaded, I don't think." Oh okay. Real but unloaded. A bit less daunting. Mac sighs, Dee shakes her head and Charlie just looks on like a disappointed mother.

Dennis, however, flares up, eyes a great, burning ember, " _Then get rid of it!_ "

Frank looks him up and down, as if he were garbage merely shaped as a human. ...Not far off. "...Nah. I'll keep it on me. You never know when it might come in handy."

"In a place full of kids, believe me, _it won't._ " And just like that: Dennis starts his venture towards the glock, and Frank evades his hands and tries desperately to conceal it down his padded vest, Dee finally starts squawking - and if it had taken any longer for her to start moving her beak Mac would've thought she lost her ability to talk altogether. Dennis dives for it, but Frank is known for his resilience, warthog with the thick thin, portly build and defensive tusks, so he doesn't give in, and just, tugs back with an - excessive amount of force for such a tiny man. So much so, that Dennis is slightly taken aback and loses what little grip he had on the thing. He curses Frank out like a child nearing a temper tantrum. Charlie, Mac and Dee were simply spectators of this, quite frankly, pathetic event, however - they were all yelling over each other, barely attempting to contain any ounce of civility, with Charlie's voice seemingly breaking through all of the clamor.

"C'mon man, give it up, you really don't need it with you."

"Yeah - yeah, Frank, listen to Charlie, give it to me so I can chuck it away and bury it under a load of greasy old pizza crusts and empty paper cups. That way, no harm no foul! _Right?_ "

Frank looks like he considers it for a brief moment, where the shouting dies down and everything slows, and calms, everyone merely awaits - but with a twitch of his nose and furrow of his brow, his knuckles only grow whiter, "No! You're tryna coarse me through Charlie! A dirty move Dennis, an' it ain't gonna work - even if I ain't gonna use it - it's mine! Therefore I have all right to keep it on me!"

"Not in a fucking laser tag arena full of kids you don't!" Dennis lunges again, "We are not getting into the rights of owning guns right now, this is a _safety concern_ and our game is almost on, now _will you just--_ "  


" _No!_ "

And like that, they were back to square one. 

Like despised father, like deranged son; clawing over each other to try and gain ownership over the gun - except, this time Charlie intercepts himself, joining Dennis' side. Frank looks betrayed and only fights more, and for a stumpy, fat alcoholic in his seventies, he could certainly defend himself. (Or much rather, his gun.) Mac watches from the sidelines, and so does Dee, except much more stoically. He can see the struggle and see Dennis getting further and further toward breaking point, his skin practically matching the red color of the laser beam emitting from his gun, and so, he gulps, and steps in. Arguably, if he had stepped in sooner, he would've been able to snatch the gun off of Frank right away, due to his - considerable, gym-built stature, but that could also be self flattery, especially when faced with a gun and the donkey-brain behind it. But, _it's unloaded._  


And as soon as he recalls that, there's no halting him - with all three of them compiled on top of him now. Frank fends, and fends, and fends _on and on,_ he just won't give up. Until, finally, the gun slips a little, and,

  
_Bang._  


  


Dee jumps backward, whilst Charlie, already half-deaf, scrunches up his eyes, Mac cowers and covers his torso for fear that he was the one that was shot - but no pain, no burning sensation fills his body nor writhes his bones. _No._ He opens his eyes and it takes a small while for everything to adjust, with the sound making white noise his best friend for a lengthy moment or two, blurring vision into a mess of dulled colors and picasso-like caricatures of familiar faces. Then he sees, and he panics. It's stupid that he felt today was off, but he knew something bad was bound to happen. And it has; _Dennis fell to the floor with a gaping wound to his rib, and blood, dramatically, pouring from his mouth like a red wine waterfall._ The cheap kind they always stole from Guiginos.

It was distasteful to think, but Dennis would find this whole situation pretty gnarly if he watched it through their flat screen back at home. This was the kind of death he'd aspire to. Something epic and tragic and beautiful all the same. But Mac blinks. This _isn’t_ a fucking fiction though. It isn’t a Tuesday movie night marathon of all his favorite action flicks. This is _Dennis._  
He falls to his knees but tries not to cry or freak out, he suppresses the urge, and just stares, wide-eyed, "Dude, dude, holy shit," Frank blinks, and simply stands, stupefied, Dee and Charlie yell over each other, but about what? He couldn't tell you, everything was a mess of incoherence apart from Dennis, "Uh, remember that time we - we shot Charlie in the back of the head? He survived. He--- you'll be fine, man, you'll..."

" _Frank I thought you said it was unloaded, man!_ "

" _I was bluffing! I thought Dennis could tell!_ "

" _Charlie only survived because it's Charlie. Dennis... _"__

____

____

Dennis was a different matter. Not to sound strange, but he was fragile. Liked to believe he was strong, but in truth he hardly had muscle on his bones, bleeding out like this would leave him dead in minutes. Hearing Dee's words solidified this fear. This, might be the end. Mac stares down at Dennis, and wonders what he's thinking, hatred, anger, seething disappointment directed at Mac's incompetence, at everybody's - there was probably no sadness in there, no nostalgia, but his lips quiver, "Mac."

He kneels further down. "Yeah?"

"Are, are you getting - an.. ambulance?"

His words are broken and spaced out, through splatters of red and liquid-filled-lungs, Mac bites his lip and hears a faint mention of one in the background, "Yeah, yeah we are. You're gonna be fine."

"Put it on... on Frank's tab, will you? He's, he's paying for everything..."

"Oh, I know, man. He will. He has to."

"...I'm," Lips fail to fully register his words, "...seeing spots, dude."

Mac puts his hand over the wound, to which Dennis emits a hiss, at least he can still feel, at least he's not numbing, still breathing, "Just stay awake. Don't leave me." This isn't the stupidest thing they've done, not the most deadly or anything of the sort, but somehow Mac had this feeling, he couldn't shake _the feeling._ Dennis's eyes lifelessly gaze into Mac's own, there’s no rage concealed, no spite, only a lighthearted look of consideration, icy blues melting in his very last moments. It was sick, and Mac hated it with every fiber of his being. He seemed so gentle. And fucking hell, he wanted to say so much. _But they didn't lead those lives._ Dennis didn't want that. They weren't _like_ that. In some world elsewhere, maybe they were. But not here.

"Mac."

"What? What, man?"

"Imagine if we - if we didn’t buy the bar together, w.. we, we probably wouldn't have lived together. Wouldn't have... done all, all the stupid shit we've done. It's so, weird..." Mac smiles. It's sad, but true. "...We've never truly left each other, not really... And now, now I'm dying next to you..."

Mac absently recalls North Dakota, but he doesn’t speak it. Instead his mind lingers on Dennis affirming that he is going to die. " _You aren't dying,_ Dennis, the ambulance,"

He rudely shushes him. There was a joke to be made there, becoming the monster you once hated, but Mac savors it as a quaint thought in this awful goddamn moment. "Let's, let's not kid ourselves, Mac, with... my blood sugar levels and my body, like it is... I'm dying, I'm…” He stops. Mac feels his eyes burning at the thought. “It's like, we're stuck together, you, you know?" Dennis laughs, through the blood. 

"In life and death, we're always..." He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t need to. Mac knows. _Together._  
"Ha, yeah. I- I guess so, dude. Just, just - hold on."

There was fast approaching tears. The ambulance had to be here soon, _right?_  
Everything would be okay.

"...Kinda, like... _Codependent losers._ R- remember that? We, we.. We’ve never changed, huh?"

"No, no, we - haven’t."

"A married couple, _us,_ it's... not far, from the truth... is it? We... we kind of are. Fuck... Mac, I," he loses his breath for a moment, blood bubbles from his mouth, "You, piss me off, you know that? But we, we really were together all... all this time... _I'm sorry._ No, no - _I'm not,_ I'm... I just, I do, I..."

Mac listens, intently, he can't quite believe what he's hearing. They cannot be. But yet, they can, in this fleeting second, they _can._ "You what, Den?"

"Den..." He smiles. A detached but warm smile, through the obvious pain that crawled it's way up his side, "...I love you, man, I do, _I do..._ "

Wedding vows that couldn't be. Charlie as best man in a tux made from trash. Dee losing their gummy rings to the rats. Their inevitable after-party at Dave & Busters. It was all so familiar, yet so, unreal, a scenario that couldn't happen, despite how plausible and close it felt.

"I, I love you too," Mac takes a deep breath, but it's no use, the flood gates have opened themselves at last, the pressure proving too strong to conceal any longer, "I loved you and I'll always love you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"

"No, _I'm sorry._ Fifteen years... Mac... fifteen, that I've wasted, hiding from what- what we could've been." 

Mac blinks. He might go into hysterics. This isn't right, surely, this can't be right, but nothing is right when you're about to die; everything is wrong and you are forced to confront it. In your dying breath, you have to face it. And he's looking right at what he's needed to confront alright, puppy-dog eyes, low IQ, riot shirt and all. Mac gulps back the salty residue streaming down from his eyes. Dennis is as pale as a hospital sheet. As pale as that fucking ambulance that should be arriving, just any moment now. "...You're the only one who, who's ever... stuck by me. You.. _despite everything, _Mac... _You_ are the one man I... I could ever love, more than any busty, one night stand... Even more than, than… Tom Brady…” That was saying a lot. “You're the only one, I could ever, love... really..."__

____

____

Mac can’t process it, not right now. He laughs, laughs through the terror preventing his blood to flow, clamming up his skin, turning air he’s trying so hard to swallow to mustard gas. “We just, we had to fuck it up, didn’t we.” 

Dennis coughs, trying to reply in affirmation, but instead the blood compiles itself, clots itself, around his maw, the very seal of death, the grim reapers lips locking with Dennis’ own, staining his sorrowful smile a terrible red. Mac puts his hand underneath Dennis’ head, to prop him up the tiniest bit - just to help open his airways - not that it was of any use, considering his lungs were already filled with liquid. “Y… You know how much - I, I hate that word, _love…_ ” 

The sentence comes out in gurgles. He almost sounds like a stubborn twelve-year-old with his first crush, through the soft choking, at least - unable to process what he was feeling. Mac just smiles. What else can he do? “Yeah. It’s - not your favorite.” You never _did_ love, did you?

“If past me, only knew…” Mac blinked, watched, listened, intently. He wasn’t going to interrupt, Dennis’ breathing was labored, and raspy now, and his voice was barely a whisper. His chest slowly rose and fell, with each attempt to take in air making his breathing pattern, the rise and fall of his chest less and less noticeable. “...That future you was just what… Just what I needed… But I, I had to… _I_ had to fuck it up…”

“But you’re here now.” In this fleeting moment. “I know, now.”

Dennis’ eyes meet Mac’s. “Yeah.” His voice is soft. The word is almost indistinguishable among the pooling in his throat. 

His eyes, they were previously staring down at the wound, breaking what little contact they had held today, eyeing what little of it he could see from his position, staring at the floor, too - how stained it was, seeing the frantic shadows of the gang running about over his hands, his body, avoiding all eye contact with Mac because the pain was enough physically. But he let it go. He let it go now, and felt his soul; _what grew inside him in replacement of it,_ shrivel until it dissolved into nothingness, until it stopped its stubborn fight to live, stopped trying to breathe. 

And there was a minor convulsion. Mac felt it travel through his hand as he supported the nape of Dennis’s neck, fingers twitch, there’s another cough - more violent, more, _final,_ there’s a spatter of crimson, some specs hit Mac’s cheek. Dennis gasps, he gasps, but he does not breathe out, and his chest stops moving altogether.

Mac knows. 

He carefully removes his hand from behind Dennis’s head, and there’s no opposition. Dennis’s eyes are fixated on him, but they don’t blink, his lips have formed a sad half-smile, to remain in rigor mortis. Suddenly, the faint background noises, Dee’s squawking, Charlie’s high-pitched yelps, Frank’s grumbles - trying to push aside the growing tension, trying to brush this mishap under the rug, except it’s forever, now, die down. Even with the surrounding glow of red and blue lights, the occasional wail of an ambulance siren that had arrived minutes too late, it all fades into silence.

  


_He’s gone._

  


The warmth of his blood on Mac’s face, he touches it, and stares at the smear on his finger, the tears haven’t stopped for a good five minutes, and they sure as fuck won’t stop now. There’s a surreal, out of body feeling, as he looks past his hand and at Dennis’s corpse. Dennis’s _corpse._ Jesus Christ. _Jesus Christ,_ help him - bring him back - let him live! He collapses forward, and cries, sobs, and the paramedics grab at his shoulders. 

There’s no point, there’s no point, _there’s no point now_ \---but he wants to believe that maybe, maybe.

-

“ _Mac!_ ”

Could it really be?

“Mac! What the fuck--- _wake up!_ ”

Mac’s eyes slowly open themselves, thick chunks of sleep lodged between his eyelashes, “Wh… _Dennis?_ ”

There he sat, in all his… early morning glory. Presumably he just had a shower, judging by the towel curled elegantly upon his head and the red robe he wore with such finesse - not to mention he looked wet, and smelt of Old Spice.... He also must’ve ran out of his own body wash, too. “Yes, it’s me. What is _wrong_ with you?”

Mac opens his mouth to explain, but remembers Dennis’s dislike regarding random spouts about dreams, so he struggles to really, say anything. That was a dream, right? This _was_ Dennis? Not some half-assed coping mechanism regarding hallucinations of his former roommate? _Right?_ He sits, or lies, much rather, stupefied, and his mouth remains agape in the odd tranquility of their apartment. He feels that his eyes are wet. Ah. He’d been crying.

“No answer? Okay.” Dennis pauses, and looks him up and down. “You were just - sobbing into the pillow. You were sleeping, though.”

“I…” Mac doesn’t think. “I had a dream about-” He stops. God, what was he thinking. 

Dennis quirks an eyebrow. He doesn’t, oddly enough, consider himself as the first answer, for as egotistical as he was - he could see that Mac’s unadulterated wails had nothing to do with the vein of pleasure - so why would it be him, it had to be trauma related. His dad, maybe? Not that he cared enough to consider it for too long. “- I… You know how I feel about dreams. They don’t interest me.”

_Unless they involve you._ “Everyone was in it, though.”

“So I’m guessing _I..._ was in it, too.”

“Um.” Mac wipes at his eyes with his forearm, “Yeah.”

Dennis moves from the couch - he isn’t uncomfortable, per-se, he isn’t unaware of Mac’s history of overtly sexual dreams involving him (Mac’s never said anything, but he doesn’t need to. The guilt lies plain upon his face.) but he’s confused as to what he saw, that made him cry so violently, but he doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t like to ask. He doesn’t want to show interest. “Okay.”

He begins to make some green tea, grabbing two tea bags from the cupboard and ignoring the strange feeling that overtook the air this morning, with the kettle bubbling, and a shared tranquility remaining.

“You died.”

Dennis blinks. _What._  
“You died, in - in the dream, and I thought it was real _and---_ ” Mac repeats. And he chokes on his tears like a child. 

At first, Dennis feels his blood boil, because he can’t handle crying - emotions - he can’t understand it, but like a china cup under the pressure of a hammer, he too, falls apart as soon as the surface tension is hit, and the bone beneath is bruised and fractured and _something_ underneath is aching to be found. He thinks about it. He doesn’t know how he died in Mac’s dream but it must’ve been realistic, to cause that visceral a reaction - Dennis swallows back some stagnant saliva - and his brow furrows. He pours the hot water and stirs the tea, his mind swimming, trying to ignore, for this second, Mac’s increasingly disturbed cries from behind.

“I thought you were dead, man, and it sounds, it sounds so stupid - b-but I just, _I don’t know,_ I don’t know - I don’t know why I dreamt it,”

“You didn’t choose to imagine me dying, Mac,” Dennis says, or maybe in some crevice of the mind - there was a little, burrowed hatred, but he doubted it, especially after such a reaction. He begins to walk over, tea in hand, “Have a drink.”

“Not the type I really want, right now - man,”

Dennis smiles, partially, at that. “Yeah, well - you can have a few down at the bar. Just - have a bit.”

Mac hastily sips at the side of the dainty china cup, cringing slightly at the flavor, before sipping further - because the taste forever grew on him. “...I ruined the pillows, dude.”

Dennis looks over, he’d been avoiding Mac’s eyes since they locked right after he awoke - but they clashed as soon as he made way to stare at the patches of tears staining his favorite turquoise cushions, they were red, bloodshot and blinking frantically, with some new tears still emerging from his ducts. Dennis looks away. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. They’ll dry in an hour.”

Mac absently nods. Dennis sits, and holds his cup, uneasily, on edge, unbeknownst as to why. The TV isn’t on. There’s no noise to delve distraction. “How did I die?”

“ _Really?_ ”

Dennis turns, “What? I wanna know if it was - you know, interesting, or not.”

Mac’s lip quivers. “You got shot. By Frank. It - it all - played out pretty realistically - we tried to call an ambulance but it didn’t arrive in time.”

Dennis’s brows raise, “Huh. That’s a bit… dire. I was hoping for something a bit more action-packed.”

Mac’s expression grew stern, “If it was more action-packed obviously I wouldn’t be crying.”

“If I died from an awesome explosion, with pay-off and everything - you’d probably start bawling immediately and run into the fire to try and save me.”

“Yeah.” There was no hesitation. Only a sip between. “Yeah, I would.”

Dennis blinks. “Yeah.” He almost softens at Mac’s affirmation. “Yeah, you… you would.”

Mac puts his hand down, onto the couch to stabilize his body, to sit up a bit, but Dennis’s hand was in the way, just, just, and they both scurry from each other like frightened rabbits. The touch is too much. The feeling is enough. The unnamed feeling. The word Dennis hated. _But that was all in his head_ \- that imaginary fiction, the nightmare of admittance before death’s door, it wasn’t Dennis - it was what Mac wanted - but it wasn’t _Dennis._ And he had to let it go, and he believed he’d begun to, but now this dream had ruined all the foundations, demolished it all, brought it all right back to the start.

“How,” Dennis stops, his breath hitches, slightly, as if he’s trying not to ask, “How do you do it?”

Mac stares at him, in confusion, “Do what?”

“How, do you love me?” The word passes Dennis’s lips like lemon juice through a newly opened cut. He returns Mac’s gaze.

Mac does whatever he usually does when confronted without preparation, deny, deny, deny, “What---what do you mean, man? - I, look the dream, you died---I just _care_ about you, I---”

“I don’t get it. I don’t-”

“I’ll stop, I will---I’m trying my best, I’ll find somebody else eventually, you’ll have this apartment all to yourself eventually, you will, _I---_ ”

Dennis just shakes his head, and Mac stops talking. “I… I don’t want that to happen, Mac.”

“What?”

“I don’t want that.”

“But,”

Dennis’s eyes narrow. Not out of frustration - but out of a stern hope that Mac will get the message through as little talk as possible. He knows it to be unlikely, though. “We’ve both had our problems, away from each other. I think, you leaving, no matter how much I’ve said in the past, would upset me.” He breathes in. This wasn’t easy. “ _A lot._ I don’t know why.” He does. He’s just not ready yet.

Mac lies, dumbfounded. He stares down at the mossy liquid that now sits cool in his cup and finds himself eased, but just as equally confused. Nothing had truly warranted this talk, had it? Or was he just so bad at noticing subtleties that he hadn’t recognized Dennis boiling over weeks ago? “Love doesn’t need an explanation, dude, it just is.” Mac begins, “It exists beyond explanation.”

It does. Dennis contemplates how cheesy Mac’s words are, but can feel the legitimacy in his tone. 

“I mean.. Yeah, you’ve never really shown it back, not _often_ \- anyway, but I’ve known, it was there. Whether I’d have to move on or not.” He drinks back the last of his tea. “We’d always have a relationship that couldn’t be replaced. Something that kept us, tolerating, each other for so long.”

Dennis’s hand is shaking, holding the cup, there is some spillage, and Mac holds the saucer beneath, and guides it toward the table. Dennis stares into his lap. He slowly labors out a breath, a sigh. He could’ve led an average life, he could’ve settled with Mandy, and Bryan, perhaps, but as he frets, he feels Mac’s presence like a beacon of light, a lifesaver, if you will. “Don’t inform the gang of this, please. Of what I’ve said.” _Of what we’ve been for a long time._ Mac thinks to himself, he’s pretty sure they’ve known for a while, and he’s pretty sure even Dennis knows that. But... if all goes unsaid, nothing has to come of it.

And it’s funny, because... he’s hardly said anything, not even a clear ‘I love you’ but Mac simultaneously understands, Dennis will never be that clear - this insignificantly monumental occasion is the closest he’ll get, they’ll get, for the time being, “Yeah. Of course.” 

“Thank you.” 

Mac smiles, and Dennis too, smiles to himself, almost as if he can see, out of his peripheral vision, his wary beaming, and returns it back. “I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

“So am I.”

Dennis puts his hand upon Mac’s, as if to establish, that it’s okay. That something, something, is happening. His hand is boney and restless but it fits his perfectly, and it holds tightly, but with tenderness, a fleeting vulnerability.

Their eyes meet again. It feels unreal. The good kind of unreal. Not the… Laser Tag, my friend is dying, sort of unreal. Sure, that Dennis said a lot more, _spoke from the heart_ a lot more - but he was also dead, and could not replace the weird, ever-changing reality of the Dennis that he saw, he lived with every day. Who was alive, thankfully, always a contradiction, always speaking his truth silently, but Mac had finally learnt to hear it. 

“Frank though. It could’ve been anyone else but no, _Frank._ ”

Mac emits a laugh, almost as if it had been years since the nightmarish bang and smear of blood upon his cheek, “I mean, it was accidental. Did I tell you it was in the Laser Tag Arena?”

“He brought a real gun to a Laser Tag Arena?” Dennis squints, “I fear just how plausible that is.”

“Should we avoid the Arena for the next few months?”

“I don’t think we were planning on returning any time soon - but, yeah.” There’s a breath, a pause. “Just to be safe.”


End file.
